Embodying the browser
Chia Amisola, Himala, 2024, hypertext website. Courtesy of the artist.
Description
An interview between Meg Miller and Chia Amisola on the development of her practice; from creating browser based environments to translating them into physical performances of the 'ambient internet'. Chia and Meg delve into the concept of embodying the browser as a personal and performative space, transforming websites into lived, immersive experiences. They explore how reading becomes a creative act, akin to authorship, and examines how writing can exist fluidly within data structures, blending code and narrative. With themes of ritual, religion, and repetition, Amisola sees the internet as a potent tool for activism and cultural expression, wielding it as a platform to advance the Filipino struggle and amplify underrepresented voices in the digital age.
I’m interested in reconfiguring our attention to the web: What is visible, invisible, foregrounded? How does poetry emerge from the landscape of the browser?
Reflection
In this conversation, Amisola explores the agency inherent in 'embodying' technology, where her poetic, chaotic and calming performances reveal how online spaces can become canvases for self-creation, transformation and sharing. Her work in Internet art performance highlights the potential of digital spaces as extensions of (cultural) identity.
Amisola's approach to digital embodiment can critically inform how we view fashion as a social system in online spaces. By 'authoring' identity - through online fashion, words or images - the digital self can become both publisher and platform, forever shifting, growing, shrinking as an evolving interface.
Quote
"If Ursula K. Le Guin described technology as the “active human interface with the material world,” I also attempt to become a technology myself."
External references
Meg Miller, BOMB Magazine, Chia Amisola
Added on
22.11.24